Intro and Three Aspects of Salvation

So we're going to kind of approach this, not necessarily a little differently, but we're going to, you know, the introduction can be relatively brief. And then what we're going to do is, I've shared this a little bit with Roger, think about why the epistle to first Peter is a little different in terms of the individual who the Spirit is using to write this epistle versus the one we learn about in the Gospel. We're going to spend probably about half the time this morning on that second part of the lesson. So let's begin with some kind of basic background of this epistle. The author's Peter, he's a Jew, but he has a Greek name, and we know him as a disciple at the time of the Gospel account, and also as an apostle, and it's written in approximately 64 AD, which was around the time of his his going home to be with the Lord.

So in the Greek, Petros means a large stone fragment. Actually, it's not the stone itself, it's a fragment of the stone. Or literally translated, it's a man of rock. In the Aramaic, his name is Cephas. So it's interesting. He's a Jew, but he has a Greek name. But the Aramaic has a different name for Peter in the term Cephas.

The epistle, I think I'm summarizing here a little bit, the focus is on basic but not overly scholarly applied doctrine with an eschatological, meaning an end times focus or theme, which often refers to Old Testament prophecy. So the Jewish background that Peter brings is reflected throughout his epistle.

There's actually some debate whether 2nd Peter's really been written by Peter, but the evidence for 1st Peter is absolutely foundational. I believe he wrote the 2nd Epistle because it's a theme that continues throughout the 2nd Epistle, but we'll come to that in July or something or whatever we get into 2nd Peter. It's actually written, even though people say it's written to the Jew, it's actually written mostly to the Gentiles, but also the Jews that are scattered throughout Asia Minor. I kind of thought before I looked at this in more detail in preparation for today that it was written to the Jews, but that's really not true. Peter was a Jew, and he brings Old Testament scripture to bear in his epistle, but yet it's really directed mostly to the Gentiles who were in Asia Minor.

We're going to come back to that in a few minutes. Constable says Peter stated his reason for writing namely to encourage his readers who are facing persecution for their faith to stand firm. And we'll learn in this epistle and to some extent in the second epistle of Peter the trials and tribulations that the believer is facing at that time and we continue to face today. That's why I think this is sound doctrine which has a tremendous amount of application that relates to our walk in the new nature today. So persecution at that time was mostly Roman persecution and mostly overseen by Nero, who was at that time, if you will, the chancellor or Caesar predominant of the nation of Rome. So let's turn to the verse now.

It's kind of a brief but kind of appropriate background to get into the epistle because some of what we're going to do going forward is going to refer back a little bit more to Peter himself and what the Lord has done in his life. So verse 1, Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the pilgrims of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. Now Peter's writing to pilgrims, so pilgrims is an interesting term.

In the Greek actually paradidamus means strangers or meaning people who reside in places where they're not citizens. Actually aliens in the American standard. In a sense you can maybe spiritualize this a little bit and these are believers who are living in a world system. But nevertheless, these are people who are probably not really citizens of the areas in which they are residing. And here is why I mentioned this. I kind of thought that pilgrims to strangers also refer to their heavenly home. I mean in a sense we're all pilgrims or aliens aren't we? I mean think about our citizenship. Is it here? Is this where our citizenship is Carol? I was just going to say the way that my Bible says it, it's a strangers in the world.

So we're not overly spiritualizing this. It's not actually and we see it as our As our society moves farther and farther beyond, we become more and more alienated in that society. Don't get too comfortable here, right? I mean, this is not what it's all about.

And Paul, again, a very simple phrase, my citizenship is in heaven, and our citizenship is in heaven. And I think I've mentioned this before, Sharon, my late wife, had a sign on the refrigerator, you know, heaven is my home, earth is just my business address. So, you know, anyway, and no whining was also part of that symbol on the refrigerator. She had a lot to whine about if somebody could have been whining. There is an H in that actually.

All right, so dispersion is better translated scattered throughout Asia Minor. So here's the map and I think you've hopefully have that in your handout. All of these areas, I mean Asia Minor really is this kind of part of this entire area. But here's Pontus, here's Cappadocia, and honey here's Rhodes where we were part of for half a day during our recent tour. And there's Galatia. And all these places that are mentioned here are shown on this map that I pulled offline.

And you know it's interesting being scattered of God. You know I think being scattered is part of God's plan. And if you don't believe that, why don't you take a look at all these verses, which were not going to be. And if you think about, you know, think about the Tower of Babel, what happened there?

I mean, it wasn't necessarily the scattering of individuals, but it was the scattering of languages, right? And boy, is that a problem today? How many dialects are there in the world? Like thousands, aren't there? And most of us can't get past English. You always admire people who speak five languages.

Usually they've grown up in Europe and places like Belgium or something where they're exposed to English and French and to some extent German. But anyway, being scattered is a biblical principle in terms of scattering the nation of Israel. And here we're seeing even in the New Testament, John, Acts, and James about the scattering of the church. And that's the dispersion that 1 Peter is talking about here.

So where are these places? Well, basically, Asian miners mostly throughout what we now know as Turkey today. And we've had the privilege, Margaret and I, of traveling through central Turkey down to Antalya. I'm not sure that's a trip we'd want to make by car, by a rental car nowadays, but anyway.

All right, so that kind of sets the stage of the dispersion of the church to whom Peter's writing. And again, keep in mind the audience is mostly Gentile, not Jew. I would dispute that. It's been taken to a lot of the old writers on this epistle that these were Jews that were scattered due to the persecution, Christian Jews. And we have that of course in Peter being the apostle to Jesus. I don't know, but what that is tradition, not necessarily based on. Well, the literature I turned to seemed to indicate that the Jew was being reached by this epistle. There's no question. I mean, Peter was steeped in Jewish tradition.

But nevertheless, we got to believe that, you know, a lot of what Paul's done is in this part of the world, too. And we think of Paul as reaching the Gentiles predominantly and Peter reaching the Jews. But there's evidence that I'll state later today that, you know, Peter was called to reach the Gentiles, too. And I think in the lessons on Galatia, Galatians that we've been listening to from Roger and from Mike point out the fact that ultimately Peter was also called to reach the Gentile believers.

I was looking at the history of this just briefly and there's quite a strong evidence that he might have even been writing this from Babylon, quite a ways to the east of there. I didn't find anything that related to where this epistle is. All right, so verse 2 then is this writing to the elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father and sanctification of the Spirit for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. Grace to you and peace be multiplied. What do you notice about this verse that's solid and foundational doctrine?

Well, okay, we'll come back to that. Yes, Tom? He actually outlines the duties of each member of the Trinity. Alright, the Trinity, I think, and we'll return to that in a summarial form in a few minutes. So all components of the Trinity are mentioned here in this particular verse. All right, so let's go ahead.

What does it mean to be elect according to foreknowledge, or if you will, translated literally in the Greek, prognosis of God the Father? To further that question, is this a position that God the Father determined, or is it something He knew would occur?

I mean, we're getting in the Calvinistic versus Arminianistic discussion here, so I think it's important for us all to understand I turn to medicine a little bit because prognosis is a term we use often in medicine. Prognosis means likely or expected development of a disease. We can reflect on the lamb, we can reflect on Ethan and the prognosis for their conditions. But what's exactly going to occur, I'm not saying God is uncertain about what that means, but ultimately the prognosis is what is expected. So God would hope that all men and women come to be saved, right? But his expectation is not that all do. So the prognosis here is that some will be and some will not be. But he's not predetermining this, okay?

This is our job by faith to respond to the truth of the gospel. So to be elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, what's the best way to think about that? How about all of us, how do we reflect on this statement? God knows, okay. Well, I think so.

The prognosis from an earthly perspective is, you know, if you look at someone, you know, with the disease entity, a dear friend of ours who I don't think is a saved, who was a saved individual died on January 1st. friends I knew in Denver who have lived in San Diego, he died of Jacob-Kreutzfeldt disease, which is mad cow disease. It's a disease of the prion, an unusual type of organism of the brain where there's neurodegeneration. Bob was a very capable guy, lovely man, very academically and scholarly inclined and well-known, former president of the ADA, which in fact I position I humbly share at this point in time but anyway Bob died of Jakob Kreutzfeldt disease so when you make a diagnosis of Jakob Kreutzfeldt disease you don't give anybody you know 10 years of life ahead of them this is a pretty rapidly progressive downhill course with no therapy so the prognosis for Jakob Kreutzfeldt disease wouldn't be you know what are your plans 10 years from now so this is an expected ultimately development of a disease. Now I'm not bringing the earthly translation into prognosis here. God knows fully well whose names will be written in the book of life. But he's not predetermined this. He's provided this opportunity for all of us. And we don't need to get bogged down on this term elect.

Any other thoughts here? Margaret? I was going to say, I love how Vern used to say the timeline. He would hold it up and say In the Lord's view, He can see eternity past and eternity future. We're on a different kind of a timeline. Everything is time and space for us. But for Him, He can see from the beginning to the end. 922 right now, actually. Right. But that's my point. He already can see into eternity future and He knows those of us who then will come to him. That's that's kind of my view. Kind of add to that.

I think you know what's cool is I think what he was pointing out is that we all can say we're the chosen of God. Every believer can say I was chosen. Now the problem we have with that it seems like well did he force me to choose? No. But that's not that's not the this is to be a reassuring thing. Every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ can say God chose me. That's what he's telling them. That's really important here. He's writing to the elect. I'm teaching this class of all believers. We're not dealing here with the unsaved.

It makes me think back of our time in the Baptist Church, where every Sunday there's an altar call. I'm not saying that's not of God, but ultimately it was preaching to the choir. You're the choir. People would come forward occasionally. I'm not faulting that. All I'm saying is that we're growing in grace. This is not, we are the elect. So let's communicate as we're the elect. And we can rejoice in it. We can rejoice that we are the elect.

Other thoughts about this? Yes, Patty. I would still come back to the thought of like a gate on the outside that says, whosoever will, to get inside. And it says, chosen, chosen. Absolutely. And you know, that's kind of, it's open to everyone, but God knows, once you realize you are chosen. Right. That's very special.

Okay, we've established that we're not going to spend any more time on this particular subject. What's it mean to be in sanctification or being set apart of the Spirit? To set apart for what kind of obedience and also what is this sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ all about? So let's not look at the handout, let's think about this a little bit. Again, I favor passing out the handout at the end of the lesson. Okay, so let's go ahead and break this down. Is this obedience to works or to the faith?

When we're told in places, in the New Testament we hear about keeping his commandments. you know that's related to the gospel and it's brought forward in some of the epistles. So what are his commandments for the church? Believe on him whom he has sent. Right, and that's what he answered the Pharisees, wasn't it? What do we do to do the works of God? To believe on him whom he has sent. That's the works of God.

So this is clearly obedience to the faith, Acts 6-7. Then the word of God spread and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith. Okay, so what's our faith in? What's it mean to be obedient to the faith? Well, it's believing not only who the Lord sent, but believing He is who He says He is. You know, there are plenty of people who have different belief systems, but we believe that Christ is who the Lord said he was, and he said he was, and what he came for, to relieve us of our sins, to take away our sins, that's who he is. To the body of believers in the year 2020 on January 5th, what's it mean to be obedient to the faith? body of truth. Good. You set up the next verse.

1 Peter 1.22 Seeing you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit, unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that you love one another with a pure heart fervently. Notice there's a work behind, if you want to call it a work, but it's obeying the truth through faith in the Spirit relates to what the outcome is of our walk in grace. Notice that it's through the Spirit. Yes, and the Spirit leads. Think of Romans 7. Paul knew all the right things, but he didn't have a Spirit-led life. He was still falling back into old ways, being under a legal system. That's not what we're under.

Our faith is to believe that we're new creations in Christ Jesus, constantly being conformed and transformed into His image. That's hard at times. I don't think an unbeliever can understand that. There's no way, but I would say, and I think I've heard Mike say this, I'm sure Roger would agree with this, one thing we need to do with new believers is really bring them into the truth of this right up front. Because I don't know, most of us, I shouldn't speak for everyone, I'll speak for myself, when I came to the Lord I thought I had all this work to do to please God, despite the fact that I believe I was saved.

Especially when we're kids. Alright, good. What about sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ for the believer? How do we interpret that? Is that the cross we carry daily? Maybe. I'm going to use scripture entirely to look at this. We're going to turn to Hebrews first.

Hebrews 9, 19 and 20 says, For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water, scarlet oil, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, This is the blood of the covenant which God has commanded you.

Remember, the sacrifice of bulls and goats can never take away the sin of the world. But let's look at a couple verses earlier which sets the foundation for what the Old Testament truth was related to sprinkling. For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sacrifices for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ? So in other words, if this blood in the past, from God's perspective, purified the flesh which we know was not complete, it was an atonement but not a propitiation. who through the eternal spirit offer himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God. So in other words, that's a question that's being posed in the book of Hebrews, but it relates to how the sprinkling of the blood from the Old Testament, from bulls and goats, ultimately relates to the sprinkling today. An act of purification, but we know it's more than atonement.

John 1.2.2, and he himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, Patty, but for the sins of the entire world. So one death for everyone, but all are not the elect. And that's not...

Do we have both aspects here? The human aspect of obedience of faith, which is a response to this Holy Spirit's teaching us, and the divine truth that God is satisfied. with the blood of Christ. So there's two perspectives in one verse there. So the sprinkling of the blood has historical basis in the sacrifice of bulls and goats. It was an atonement for a time until the crucifixion and now that blood is sprinkled on us as our sins are forgiven and we have a newness of life, spirit led, Roy, that he has endowed us to.

I think that also relates to your earlier comments. and that this is a Jewish perspective that would be readily understood by the Jews. I'm not so sure it would be by Gentiles. That's an excellent point, yes, thank you. Now we mentioned this earlier, notice that all three members of the Trinity are in this verse, so that the beginning of the epistle of Peter to those who are scattered Gentiles and Jews. Ultimately, the three members of the Triune God are mentioned here. Alright, grace do you and peace be multiplied and this is very much like many of Paul's salutations. I mean grace and peace be unto you must be in three or four at least of Paul's epistles.

So that really is I think kind of the theme if you will of all these epistles that are reaching the elect for the benefit of understanding that grace and peace are important. Weiss, the Greek word grace is so rich in its meaning, where this is not a lesson in grace per se, because that could be weeks of teaching, which it historically was under Hal's presence here. The Greek word grace is so rich in its meaning that the reader is referred to the author's other books for a study of its classical and New Testament meanings.

And Chapers is a good place to go here too. where it's fully treated. Here the word refers to the enabling grace for daily Christian living, which is given to the saint, yielded to, and depended upon the Holy Spirit. I think that's well worded by Wiest. And I thank Roger for sending Constable and Wiest out, because I think they're very helpful.

Alright, what kind of peace is this? We think of the peace of God and the peace with God. What kind of peace are we talking about here? It's being multiplied so I would say it's wisdom in a way, it's our perspective. Is that where you're going? Well, yes, and we're going to turn to a definition.

Now if you look at Thayer's multiple definitions for peace, It can be simplistically the peace of God or peace with God. And here's what he says here, the tranquil state, this interpretation in this particular verse, is a tranquil state of a soul assured of its salvation through Christ and so fearing nothing from God and content with its earthly lot of whatever sort that is. So this I think is the peace of God that we all experience, that satisfaction that the price has been paid. So it's our peace.

Alright, Romans 5.1. Therefore being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Very simple. We could turn to other verses there also. Alright, any other thoughts about these first two verses in context of what they state and how they're applied to our lives. This is something that we have summed up in so few words. Tremendous truths. It's just like today, if we talk like this, most people would just, what? But he was comfortable in writing these in just a few words. And I think that's nice, Roy, and sets the stage for where we're going for the rest of the morning.

So it's what God has done in Peter that makes these two epistles very special. I'm going to contend that he did write the second epistle, but nevertheless, we'll get there later. Let's see what Scripture reveals about this transition in Peter. And I'm going to use Scripture entirely in terms of setting the stage for the Peter before the cross. and the Peter subsequent to that who wrote this epistle some, what, 30 plus years later. So I'm going to set the stage again.

Simon Peter was a native of Bethsaida on the Sea of Galilee that's stated in John 1.44. He's a fisherman and married to a woman named Perpetua who we know nothing more about, basically. We don't know if there are children here. We know he had a mother-in-law because she was ultimately, you know, her illness was cured based on the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. So we're going to use scripture now to identify who this Peter was and then becomes after the cross.

Matthew 4.18-19, And Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishers. And he said unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. Boy, what kind of understanding would have Peter had of that? Not much. No. What's it mean to be fishers of men? Little did he know about the epistle he was to write some three decades later at that time.

Matthew 14 28 through 30 and Peter answered him and I'm going to use just glimpses of who this guy is before the cross. Peter answered him and said, Lord if it be thou did me come unto thee on the water And he said, come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water to go to Jesus.

But then he saw the wind boisterous or blowing hard like we've had in Denver last day or two. He was afraid and beginning to sink. He cried, saying, Lord, save me. All right. So we can all position ourselves with Peter at the time. And if we're walking on water, we're going to say, what's going on here? I mean can you identify with his lack of faith there? I mean we're all very human. We'd say, what's going on here? The wind's kind of heavy and then so he starts to sink. All right, there's Peter.

Matthew 16, 15 to 16. And by the way, much of this is in other gospel accounts. I just chose Matthew because it seemed to be more Jewish in terms of its direction in terms of the readership. He said unto them, But whom say ye that I am? I am Simon Peter, answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. So here he's acknowledging that Christ asked him who do they say that I am and he says you're the Christ, the Son of the living God.

Now let's parallel that to the unbeliever today or at least the person who has some faith but may be more agnostic. Is that something intellectually pleasing? What did he really believe at that point in time? I would claim that what's subsequent to this would mean he didn't really understand what he was saying. None of the disciples understood.

On in Matthew 16, from that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples how I must go to Jerusalem and suffer, that verse is a lot longer, but I truncated it. Then verse 22, then Peter took him and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord, thou shalt not be unto thee. This is what Christ had projected was his going forth to suffer, of course, relating to the cross.

In Matthew 26, Peter answered and said to him, even if all are made to stumble because of you, I will never be made to stumble. Jesus said to him, assuredly I say to you that this night before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times. And Peter said to him, even if I have to die with you, I will not deny you.

And so said all the disciples. So it's not just Peter, it's all, as Margaret pointed out, it's all of the above. And in John 21, he said to him, this is after the resurrection now, Simon son of Jonah, Do you love me? And Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, do you love me? And he said to him, Lord, you know all things, you know that I love you. And Jesus said to him, feed my sheep.

Now, I don't want to go back into those verses in terms of the Greek term used for love. But here's, you know, Peter kind of still not kind of with the program in terms of where ultimately the Lord would have him. So I'm going to summarize this and set all these examples, and there are more probably, reveal Peter's character as fervent and passionately devoted to the Lord, but at the same time impulsively emotional, hasty to judge, overly self-confident, and he was excessively impacted and influenced by the world's view around him. But a magnificent transition was created in him after his fall through the grace of the risen Lord Jesus Christ. So that's my summary of Peter in the Gospel account.

Would anybody like to add anything to this? He's a man with a lot of personality. There's no question about it. Yes, Wayne? I was just thinking of the previous verses you were talking about. Doesn't that kind of point to the what would Jesus do group today? Okay. Don't understand really the two natures. They're not growing in the grace of being transformed and conformed. Good points. Other thoughts about that? It's not about that, but I was thinking of Peter and his background.

He would have gone to the synagogues as a fisherman. He would have been listening to the prevailing teaching about the Christ, the promised one. And they had two lines of teaching. One was as a king, and one was as a suffering servant. And the predominant one at that time, because of the Romans, was he's coming as king.

Right. You know, your comment makes me reflect on the Christmas carols. Think about the Christmas carols. Most of them identify Christ as the King. joy to the world and I mean on and on. It talks about the king and in a sense I think it's written by the kind of people you're referring to. You and I talked about this because Bob was complaining about the Christmas carols.

I don't think that's the right answer. I guess that's an adverb. A lot of those Christmas carols were really written so long ago many of them that are the traditional hymns that we sing were written a long time ago when you know they didn't really understand I mean there were this is even some of them probably before the Reformation I mean I don't know the time of the exact time but a lot of them were written when that was really what they thought the king before It was more the Catholic view of Christ. The discussion of Christmas carols is not part of the lesson today.

Just Roy's comment about the King and the Savior, right? I was going to say, I think a lot of them seem like it's written for the millennial time. great and all the nations come. Peace be on earth. Everybody in their Christmas cards, at least the world, I'm being critical here a little bit for the world, always peace, peace be on earth, peace for all men. Anyway, that's not scriptural until the kingdom age for sure.

Anyway, we maybe sometimes have too much knowledge or maybe we shouldn't get cocky about that ever. But nevertheless, I think ultimately Peter was a unique individual, described probably in more detail than any other disciple other than maybe John. That's arguably true. What's really neat, we get to see he's a real person because he does things that we sometimes would say, sure. I'll do that. I don't do it. Denying something three times, right? All right, but we can kind of look at Peter and say, gee, I wouldn't have done that, but you would have. I mean, it really does reflect the flesh and everything that's about the flesh. It can look good at times. And you get enthusiastic about things and you're overconfident.

Let's enter the cross and its impact on Peter. So I'm giving examples now of this new man in Christ Jesus. In Acts 2, and I'm jumping from 14 to 37-38 because the theme is there, but Peter's standing up. This is the time of his preaching the gospel and the church being founded.

But Peter's standing up with the eleven, the other apostles, raised his voice and said, the men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you. So Roy pointing out his initial ministry anyway to the Jews in that part of the world. Heed my words. Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, men and brethren, what shall we do? Interesting.

Then Peter said to them, repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. He didn't tell them what they should do other than repent. Now, the question is, do we need to repent before we get saved? And I've heard that discussed at length on Christian radio and things over the years. No, we come to the Lord by faith, that he paid the price for our sins. The repentance may follow, but anyway, Peter's at least on the right track at that time. We understand more about this today, I think.

Acts 3.6 Then Peter said, Silver and gold I don't have, but what I do have I give you in the name of Jesus Christ Nazareth. Rise up and walk. Not do. Rise up and walk. Acts 4, 13, 15.

Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled and they realized that they had been with Jesus. But Peter and John answered and said to them, whether it's right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge.

He's talking, I think this is his period in Acts 4. Let's look at that a second. This is early on during his ministry. Actually I looked at this yesterday or earlier today and I don't remember. This is to the Sanhedrin and they're judging from whence these truths had come. So he's addressing the Sanhedrin which is the more liberal aspect of the Jewish tradition.

Okay, Acts 9.34, and Peter said to him, Aeneas, Jesus the Christ heals you. He doesn't take credit for the healing, but he gives it to the Lord.

Arise and make your bed. And then Aeneas rose immediately. And then this is the other example of healing, and there are several examples. And Peter put them all out and knelt down and prayed and turned to the body, he said, Tabitha arise and she opened her eyes and when she saw Peter she sat up. So, interesting, the process, knelt down, prayed, and ultimately she was brought back to life.

Acts 12.11, And when Peter had come to himself, he said, Now I know for certain that the Lord has sent his angel, and has delivered me from the hand of Herod, and from all the expectation of the Jewish people. This was when the chains that he was bound by were released, and he left prison. So this was a miraculous event, but notice the credit is given to the Lord.

And then Acts 15.7, And when there had been much dispute, Peter rose up and said to them, Men and brethren, you know that a good while ago God chose among us that by mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. And that's one example, and I think we saw it in Galatians again, where Peter also had a ministry to the Gentiles. You know we're coming to the end when you see this. So I'm going to summarize this aspect with just some verses that I pulled out kind of just arbitrarily.

Peter's passion became sanctified with a new spirit led humility. His love to the Lord and in the Lord was transformed and manifested in proclaiming and living the gospel and suffering for his name. And I think this is the new Peter by whom the Lord will teach us much as we pursue this epistle. Your thoughts? Yes, Roy? I don't know. I'm just going back to Acts 4. Yeah, you may have more insight there, I'm sure.

The Sanhedrin, of course, were the Pharisees and the Sadducees, were dominated by these two religious groups that were highly educated. The Sadducees didn't believe in the resurrection. Jesus is raised from the dead and they are giving that testimony and their comments about it in verse 13 is that they saw the boldness, they were impressed by the boldness and why? because they perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men seminary so to speak. We use that term today but they had a seminary back then too but it was a priestly type teaching seminary.

But that doesn't mean that they didn't know how to write. That didn't mean that they couldn't write the epistle Peter. And I think a lot of people today look at this verse and they say or that they were dictated to subscribe somewhere along the line. I don't hold to that. I think that just about everybody, I think, was able to write back then.

But it wasn't like the Sadducees and Pharisees. It was of a level that had to do with trade. Like Matthew, tax collector, he could take shorthand because he had to keep public records of those transactions. So, you know, it was a different kind of education.

OK, these are good thoughts. I think that it makes me think of what the Jew, the Jew or the Jewess who goes to the synagogue today, what are they looking for in the rabbi? teaching the laws around there. Well, yeah, but these are people, very educated people, who are very intelligent. They're profoundly philosophical and really relate to world systems. I mean, placing the Orthodox or more conservative Jew in that setting and probably teach the law to some extent. I've been to very few synagogues other than for, you know...

If you go to them, you'll find that they believe So strongly they memorized most of the first five books of the Bible. I mean they had it down verbatim what it said. And that's why Jesus many times when he spoke about it he didn't explain it because they already knew it. You know from early up until their What did they call it? Bar Mitzvah. Ceremony. They were memorizing the scripture.

That was part of their life back then. We don't have that today. Tom? I think of that attitude prevailing then and why do you think some of that is still around today? And I think of maybe just an unorthodox example, no pun intended, kind of like a bull trying to make sense to rock a jetty squirrel. It doesn't come through all the time. That's a good metaphor there, Tom.

Thank you. But anyway, Margaret and I knew a lot of Jewish people mostly through my vocation over the years. There are very few that are conservative or more orthodox in terms of their orientation, but those that are are looking for intelligence and really what they would call Jewish wisdom. So the rabbi really represents this educational and well-trained informant. not the criticism, Roy, that you brought up of Peter and John. Any other thoughts about today?

I just wanted to, in the second part, kind of reflect on the member of the body who's writing to us today, who was writing to them then, but I think what we see is the transformation of a life that relates to kind of what is the process that God's working out at each and every one of us.

So I think that's an important kind of transition that we see in Peter that we can relate to both before and after. Okay, we're done then. Roger, can you close us in prayer, please? Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for our time today, Lord. Thank you for this new book we're going to be studying this year, Father. I asked you two books. Thank you for your spirit to guide us. Thank you for Bob, and Andrew, and Roy, and all of me to be privileged to go through this book. In Christ's name, amen. Amen.